californiq craft brewary buildings in the mountains

Three giant roll-up glass garage doors provide additional light to the airy courtyard interior. A verdant mural, featuring a huge bird illustration worthy of an avian field guide, wraps around the courtyard. Braden confirms that he loves the Dealership, and that this design is an homage.īut rather than featuring retro automotive graphics in its repurposed garage, Fieldwork San Leandro draws on the naturalist theme behind the company name.

The feel is something akin to Drake’s Dealership, in nearby Oakland, California, a popular brewery taproom with a similar automotive heritage and an open rooftop. At the suggestion of the real estate agent, the ambitious renovation included stripping everything down to the bones and removing a significant portion of the roof to create a beer garden patio. Earlier, in the 50s and 60s, it had been a Firestone Auto Service Center. But despite the presence of a discarded vault, the big boxy building displayed few of the characteristics expected in an older bank. His main criterion was a good circulation of people around the buildings he looked at.Īdapting older buildings is a strategy that’s worked for small breweries around the globe, reconfiguring structures from factories to churches. His real estate agent had also proposed that location, as well as the San Ramon site. And then San Mateo dropped into our lap,” Braden recounted. I knew we needed a presence in Sacramento.

“I knew we wanted to be in Napa and maybe we wanted to be in Monterey. The brewery’s business plan had always anticipated opening multiple locations following the launch of Berkeley in 2015, but San Leandro was not on the radar. The structure was a vacant bank owned by his realtor when the craft brewery’s co-founder, Barry Braden, first saw it.

Servers deliver flavorful Fieldwork beers, creative pizzas available in both the round Neapolitan and square Detroit styles, a selection of appetizers and even the occasional glass of wine for those who are so inclined. There’s seating under the overhang in case of rain as well as a bona fide indoor bar area with 32 taps where up to 65 patrons can hang out. The beer garden portion has a capacity of 265 people. Passers-by, arriving diners and craft beer fans can peek through the doorway into the expansive interior courtyard created when a substantial swath of the building’s roof was removed for the project. The taproom building on Juana Street at East 14th is boldly branded and impossible for its new neighbors to miss.

Californiq craft brewary buildings in the mountains